So the CLAT results are out. Congratulations to all those who’ve done well. While what counts as a good rank or a good score might be relative, it helps to remember that this is where your law school journey begins. Or not, should you choose to opt for something else.

Either way, LST is here to help you every step of the way. Our task doesn’t end with the declaration of the results, and we take our responsibility towards getting you into the law school of your choice quite seriously. The post-result notifications on the CLAT website can be a little nebulous, but don’t worry, we’re here to simplify things for you.

A look at the CLAT website will show you that the 21st to the 25th May are the dates during which you can fill up your preferences, and that the subsequent counseling requires you to pay a fee between June 4th and 10th. We’ll break these stages down for you further.

i) The Preference Filling

This is a crucial decision-making juncture for you, and you wouldn’t want to lose out on a potentially good law school owing to general perception and lack of information. So we’ve provided you with an indicative preference list, so you know what the law school hierarchy looks like (sadly, we know there is one, and all NLUs aren’t the same). However, that’s not to say that you should go solely by this list, since what you do with the law school you eventually go to, is down to you to a large extent. Graduates of all law schools have done well for themselves regardless of what their CLAT rank was.

So take a look, but you might also want to consider other factors such as your location, the fees of the NLU in question (there are differences), whether you’re eventually looking at a law firm career or an academic one (or something else entirely), how pretty the campus is (believe us, that’s a factor for many people) and so forth.

There are two basic assumptions that have been made here. One, you may not know for sure what trajectory your legal career is going to take (litigation, Corporate law…). Two, NLUs that are older are better established therefore more consistent in turning out well-prepared graduates.

You will realize that since the CLAT follows a merit-cum-preference system, and since the number of seats actually available is always less than the number of applicants, merely filling in your preferences wouldn’t be enough to get you to the law school of your choice. The counseling process is supposed to tell you whether you will get your first, second or even third preference.

Following the filling of preferences, there will be an indicative seat allocation depending on the ranks and the number of seats. Those whose names appear on this indicative list will be required to deposit 50,000 INR either online or offline. The online process would involve using either credit card/debit card the way it was used for the submission of the application fee. The offline process would involve bank challan or whatever method the CLAT committee might prescribe. It’s adjustable against your fee, or refundable (with a deduction of 10,000 if you get allotted an NLU but don’t take it). It’s refundable completely if your name appears on the indicative allotment but you don’t end up getting any NLU.

To help you make that call, and get a sense of whether or not you’ll get the NLU that you want, we’ve prepared an indicative cut-off rank list. Remember that this doesn’t definitively indicate which NLU you would get; it’s only based on past years’ data.

]]>https://www.gpkafunda.com/how-to-fill-the-clat-preference-list/feed/0No one killed Jessica!https://www.gpkafunda.com/no-one-killed-jessica/
https://www.gpkafunda.com/no-one-killed-jessica/#commentsTue, 09 Jun 2015 16:12:05 +0000https://www.gpkafunda.com/?p=3437No one killed Jessica is the thought that came to my mind when I heard that out of the 25+ errors in CLAT 2015 the authorities had accepted only two more errors (one incorrect question and one change of answer choice) in the paper despite sufficient evidence to the contrary.

In the unfortunate case of Jessica Lal, the accused were acquitted due to botched up investigation and false witnesses. Sabrina, her sister, decided to fight the system. Media, public and political parties came together and the government machinery was forced to act leading to the accused getting convicted. If CLAT 2015 candidates who have been done in by the “Expert Committees of CLAT 2015” think that they too will get justice they are sadly mistaken, nothing of the sort will happen. No one will stand up for them. Let us look at all the actors in this charade called CLAT 2015.

CLAT organizing and implementation committees: These committees comprise the Vice Chancellors and registrars respectively of the NLUs. These entities have the responsibility of conducting the test in a fair and transparent manner. I am not aware of the inner workings of the CLAT committees, the VCs and Registrars would have delegated the responsibilities to the “Experts” and would have gone by their advice but the VCs are still accountable for the output. Late night on 5th June, I sent emails to the VCs of the NLUs with the list of errors requesting their intervention but to no avail.

Experts who created CLAT 2015: They decided that you need to know law before you join a law school; they feel that to be a good lawyer you need to have a good grasp of high level mathematical concepts. They gave us a syllabus and ignored it when creating the question paper. Their inability to copy questions correctly produces a question paper that would make “Jolly LLB” look like an expert in English language. No wonder these “Experts” are unable to find any error in the question paper and would want us to believe that:

The critics censored (not censured) the new movie because of its social unacceptability (Q2),

Either Dulcet and Raucous are synonyms or Crazy and Insane are antonyms (Q25),

Legal knowledge and legal reasoning mean the same,

11,800 lies between 10,000 and 11,000 (Q166)

Data sets can be solved with inconsistent data (Q169-173 and Q191)

For other such pearls of wisdom please go through the CLAT 2015 paper.

Okay the paper has errors and there are other issues but at least it is fair! Are you kidding? A few students have filed a case in Allahabad High Court claiming that the extra ordinary result of candidates in a particular city is due to “transparency” – their allegation is that the paper was made available to some coaching institutes a couple of days before CLAT 2015.

Parents: Kids expect parents to protect their rights but here it is the parents who are afraid of raising their voice. Privately they complain but will not come out in the open and will not do anything to protect the future of their children. The parents who want their children to have a career in law do not want to get involved in “legal hassles”! And who are these parents? They are lawyers, members of the judiciary, senior civil servants, CXO’s in top private sector companies, top media professionals and other educated elite of the country.

Parents of candidates who have done well do not want any changes because it could harm their children. So what if the questions are incorrect, all that matters is that my child has made it to a top Law school in the country. Many of them do not realize that correcting the errors in the paper could lead to improved marks and better ranks for their wards.

Media: Many parents and students think that the media will come to their rescue. It will amplify their voice, force the authorities to notice the injustice and rescue their careers. How stupid can you get, media goes after numbers and there are only 40,000 of you. As compared to the 15 lakh candidates for IIT JEE, 10 lakh for Civil Sevices, 7 lakh for Medical and 2 lakh for MBA you are insignificant, you do not count. The AIPMT paper leak has been widely reported but CLAT 2015 has hardly attracted any attention. Do not expect the media to stand up for you, you will not add to their TRPs.

Political Parties: What about the political parties? Well they are not really different from media. It is the numbers that matter and you are very few. Not so long ago Mr. Modi, Mr. Gandhi and Mr. Kejriwal were wooing the youth and presumably they will act if they get the information but how will they come to know of your misfortune? Can you organize a street protest or a dharna at Jantar Mantar or a candle light march? No, then there is no hope for you. Do not pin your hopes on social media, it is virtual, in the real world only physical is noticed, genuineness of the cause is not important.

Judiciary: Which leaves us with only the judiciary, but it will usually not act on its own and someone has to approach the judiciary. Your parents refuse to act, the media is silent and you do not exist for the political parties hence the judiciary cannot do anything.

Coaching institutes: But what about the coaching institutes? Why can’t they approach the courts is a common refrain. We can’t because of two reasons – one, we are not the affected party and hence do not have a “locus standi” and two, it is (incorrectly) assumed that coaching institutes have a vested interest in picking up such issues and hence it weakens the case.

You the CLAT Aspirant: So my dear students, please learn to grin and bear it, please learn to compromise with your ambitions. Do not expect anyone else to help you in your hour of crisis unless they can gain something out of it.

However if you are not willing to compromise on your ambitions then please stand up and fight for your rights, get your parents to file a case in the courts and do not let the system rob you of what you deserve. It is your career and you have to take the first step.

GP

Note: I had written this article late evening on 6th June after CLAT 2015 rejected of almost all errors in the paper. I was extremely disturbed and in my anger wrote this article. One rule that I follow is that anything written in anger will not be published immediately and will be reviewed after a couple of days to ensure that in my anger I have not been incorrect or judgemental

]]>https://www.gpkafunda.com/no-one-killed-jessica/feed/8CLAT 2015 Errors – Yeh kahan aa gaye hum?https://www.gpkafunda.com/clat-2015-errors-yeh-kahan-aa-gaye-hum/
https://www.gpkafunda.com/clat-2015-errors-yeh-kahan-aa-gaye-hum/#commentsWed, 03 Jun 2015 17:10:57 +0000https://www.gpkafunda.com/?p=3388C(L)AT 2015 is finally out of the bag – for zero attempts in CLAT 2015 I secured 1 mark and it turns out that I have been cheated and should have been awarded at least 20 marks!

What hurts me the most is that it is so unfair to the future law aspirants. Spare a thought to those who received top 100 ranks. The whole episode has created unwarranted apprehension in their minds. However, I do believe that the process has to fair to everyone.
Sharing of the CLAT 2015 question paper and the answer key by RMLNLU is a step in the right direction and they should be lauded for the same. However it is still short of the standards set by IIT JEE and hopefully CLAT and other exam conducting bodies will follow what IIT JEE practices.

All CLAT 2015 candidates received a mail from clatsectionwisereport2015@admin.com on 23rd May 2015 containing a link that gave the candidate’s section-wise response for all questions in the test. However one cannot compare the CLAT 2015 question paper with the section-wise response since the sequence of questions in a computer based test is different for all candidates. Hence, I hope that CLAT authorities will release the questions paper and the response sheet of all candidates.

Coming to the issue at hand, I have gone through the CLAT 2015 question paper and am aghast at the carelessness in the creation of the question paper. Most of the errors in the question paper are typographical mistakes and could have been easily avoided. It appears that the editing of the question paper did not happen. I have divided the questions in two categories:

Category 1: Incorrect questions or answer choices that have affected the students’ scores and hence a corrective action is required.

Category 2: Errors in questions that could be ignored (ex – Q22 and Q23) because the students would possibly have been able to solve, regardless. Arguably, the students should be compensated.

CATEGORY 1:

Incorrect questions or answer choices that have harmed the students.

Q2. All options are incorrect.

Correct answer: BBBBA

Answer as per CLAT: BABBA

Q6. All options are incorrect

Sentence B: The noun or the reason cannot be counted. Hence the correct sentence should have been “Your stand is beyond all reason.”

In Sentences C & D respectively, there should be an indefinite article “a” before “friend” and “profitable”

Correct answer: Sentence B, C and D are incorrect

Answer as per CLAT: Choice (D)

Q25. The answer choice by CLAT is incorrect.

Correct answer: Choice (C) Palliative : Exacerbating

Answer as per CLAT: Choice (B) Crazy : Insane

Q30. All choices are incorrect.

Answer as per CLAT: Choice (C) foreign change bankruptcy and paucity of funds with the government.

There is a typographical error – the word change should be replaced with exchange to get the correct answer.

Q35. The question is incorrect due to a typographical error.

The question is asking about “government’s projectionist policy”, it should have been “government’s protectionist policy”

Since the passage does not talk about the projectionist policy none of the choices can be marked.

If this is ignored and we choose to read Projectionist as Protectionist, even then the correct answer should be Choice (B) while CLAT has given the answer as Choice (D).

Q37. All choices are incorrect.

The passage does not have any reference to “Politicians”, it has only talked about the “Government” and to extrapolate Government to all Politicians will be incorrect.

The correct answer would have been: Indian government has been myopic in its vision of the country’s requirements.

If this is ignored and we choose to read Politicians as Policies or treat them equivalent to Government, even then there are two correct options – Choice (A) and Choice (C)

Q56. The answer choice by CLAT is incorrect.

Correct answer: Choice (C) Alibaba

Answer as per CLAT: Choice (A) Amazon

Q113. The answer choice by CLAT is incorrect.

Correct answer: Choice (A)

Answer as per CLAT: Choice (C)

Since Y has filed a suit against X claiming that X was of unsound mind at the time of entering into the contract, X has to prove that he was of “sound mind” at the time of entering into the contract.

If Legal knowledge is applied then the idea is on competence to contract. A person of unsound mind (or of sound mind but in unsound state of mind at the time of contracting) is not competent to contract as per the provision. Mr. X was of unsound mind when he entered into a contract with Mr. Y as clearly stated in the facts. Hence, X cannot contract with Y in the instant case. Hence the correct answer should be Choice (A).

Q120. “Special offences” are not defined in the question and hence both Choice (B) and Choice (D) can be correct.

Q129. The answer choice by CLAT is incorrect.

Both the propositions are correct but R is not the correct explanation of A.

Correct answer: Choice (B)

Answer as per CLAT: Choice (A)

Q166. The answer choice by CLAT is incorrect. The answer is Rs.11,800.

Q169-173. The data set is incorrect. It has been incorrectly copied from CAT 2003 paper.

In the last line in place of 26 it should be 46 due to which the set cannot be solved.

Q180. All choices are incorrect.

Answer as per CLAT: Choice (A)

Based on the definition given under Directions, Option A is incorrect. Statements A, B, C are judgments hence none of the choices are correct.

Q182. All options are incorrect.

A typographical error, in statement B instead of “wealth” it should have been “health”

Q184. All options are incorrect.

Choice (B) ACB would have been the answer if statement A was: “All software companies employ only knowledge workers”

If this explanation is ignored then Choice (D) ACE would also be correct.

Q185. The answer choice by CLAT is incorrect.

Correct answer: Choice (C)

Answer as per CLAT: Choice (D)

Q186. Two options – (C) and (D) are the same.

Possibly this is the question for which marks have been given to all candidates.

Q187. The answer choice by CLAT is incorrect.

Correct answer: Choice (A)

Answer as per CLAT: Choice (C)

Statement II in this question is unnecessary. The answer can be inferred from Statement I itself. Hence the correct choice is Option A

Q191. The question is incorrect.

Probably another typographical error – If FASHION is z64t7w then POSITION is ?

FASHION has 7 characters while its code has only 6 characters.

POSITION has 8 characters while all the choices have 8 characters.

Q197. The answer choice by CLAT is incorrect.

The possible number of words from the word is LAPROSCOPY without changing the order of letters and using each letter only once is 3.

LAPAROSCOPY 1st word is LAP and we are left with PAROSCOY

PAROSCOY 2nd word is PRO and we are left with ASCOY, 2nd word can also be PAR and in this case we will be left with OSCOY

ASCOY 3rd word is COY and we are left with AS

Correct answer: Choice (C) 3 however other combinations are also possible and even this might not be the correct answer.

Answer as per CLAT: Choice (B) 2

CATEGORY 2:

Incorrect questions or answer choices in which the error can possibly be ignored.

Q22. All options are incorrect: The word “but” should not have been underlined.

Q23. All options are incorrect: The words “no telling” should not have been underlined.

Q112. This is a question of reasoning and as per the directions Legal Knowledge should not be required for answering the question.

Q114. This is a question of reasoning and as per the directions Legal Knowledge should not be required for answering the question.

Q118. This is a question of reasoning and as per the directions Legal Knowledge should not be required for answering the question.

What should Candidates do?

I request all students to send a mail to CLAT authorities with the above and asking for corrective action. To make your task easier, a letter to CLAT Convener has been drafted along with the list of errors. Click here to download the letter and send it to helpdesk@clat.ac.in . You should fill in your personal details in the letter along with possible option (given below) that you want the CLAT authorities to take. Considering that the 1st indicative list of the selected students is still not out, you are requested to send the letter as early as possible. Larger the number of candidates writing to CLAT authorities higher is the chances of corrective action hence do ask all your friends who have taken CLAT to also send this mail.

The possible options in such a scenario for CLAT authorities are:

Option I

Eliminate the incorrect questions in Category 1.

Rectify the answer key for question in Category 1.

Ignore Category 2.

Recalculate the scores and award ranks as per the corrected scores.

Option II

Eliminate the incorrect questions both in Category 1 and Category 2

Rectify the answer key for the remaining questions.

Recalculate the scores and award ranks as per the corrected scores.

Option III:

Scrap this CLAT paper because with such a larger number of errors you may not have been able take the test in the right frame of mind.

There was also significant loss of time due to the erroneous questions and hence a re-test should be conducted.

Conclusion:

There is also an option IV, which is to do nothing! That however, seems to be an unfair option. The problem is – irrespective of the option that the authorities will finally chose, it has caused unnecessary heartaches to those young aspirants. This is absolutely unfair!

Our own effort to get to the bottom of this fiasco is still underway. I will come back and share more. I sincerely hope that we don’t have news worse than this. I hope C(L)AT 2015 did not come out of the bag before her time!! Stay cued in for more.

All the best, GP

]]>https://www.gpkafunda.com/clat-2015-errors-yeh-kahan-aa-gaye-hum/feed/17Aur bhi Law School hai zamane me NLU ke sivahttps://www.gpkafunda.com/options-other-than-the-major-law-entrance-exams/
https://www.gpkafunda.com/options-other-than-the-major-law-entrance-exams/#commentsMon, 25 May 2015 11:07:19 +0000https://www.gpkafunda.com/?p=3342With the release of the CLAT results, we see panic both amongst those who get high ranks and those who don’t. This panic is inevitable, too, since students as well as we have been working hard through the year and are therefore eager to know which law school they will finally get. In an attempt to ease at least some of the stress, we’ve created a rough guide to non-NLUs that you can consider if you haven’t done well in SET, AILET or CLAT. Some of these use class XII percentages for their cutoffs, whereas others either use CLAT scores or have their own entrance exams.

Through CLAT Scores: The following institutions use CLAT scores for admission. So anything between 40-70 marks can make you eligible for admission to these colleges. You can check their individual notifications on their websites as and when they come out.

Alliance School of Law, Alliance Univ., Bangalore, Karnataka

IFIM Law College, Bangalore, Karnataka

Narsee Monjee School of Law, Mumbai

ITM, Gurgaon

Institute of Law, Nirma University, Ahmedabad

Lloyd Law College, Greater Noida

SRM University, Kattankulathur, Tamil Nadu

Manipal University, Jaipur

N.A. Global Law School, Bangalore

SRM University, Sonepat, Haryana

Altius Institute of universal Studies, Indore

Separate Entrance Exams: The following colleges conduct their own entrance exams.

1. Alliance School of Law, Alliance Univ., Bangalore, Karnataka: ACLAT-Alliance Common Law Admission. Alliance Univ. considers both CLAT scores as well as ACLAT, their own entrance exam. ACLAT will be conducted on June 06, 2015. The two hour admission test consists of objective type questions on Language Proficiency, General Awareness, Legal Aptitude, Logical Reasoning & Analytical Ability and Numerical Ability.

2.IFIM Law College, Bangalore: ILAT (IFIM’s Law Admission Test). IFIM, Bangalore selects basis CLAT as well ILAT. ILAT will be conducted on June 8, 2015. Students who have missed writing CLAT, can alternatively take this exam. The 60 mins, objective type test consists of 50 questions on English, G.K & Mathematics.

Class XII Cutoffs: These colleges use your class XII percentage for admission, so there isn’t the hassle of having to write an entrance exam.

1. ILS Law College, Pune: Established in 1923, it regularly features in top 10 law school lists, ahead even of certain NLUs. Admissions begin in May, and interviews happen in June. Previous years’ cutoffs for all streams (all subjects included) is given in the table below. There’s a different range for students within Maharashtra.

Non-Maharashtra Board (%)

Maharashtra Board (%)

Year

Commerce

Science

Arts

Commerce

Science

Arts

2014

94.40

94.20

94.00

80.33

79.80

77.17

2. Government Law College, Mumbai: Established in 1855, it is the oldest law school in Asia. Its cutoffs are:

Non-Maharashtra Board (%)

Maharashtra Board (%)

Year

Commerce

Science

Arts

Commerce

Science

Arts

2014

96.8

94.4

95.6

91.5

90.0

None

2013

95.2

94.2

95.0

90.3

90.0

—

3. ICFAI Faculty of Law, Dehradun: Forms are available for download on their website, and the last date for submission is June 8th, 2015. Admission is through class XII scores (50%) minimum, and CLAT scores are also given weightage.

4. MS Ramaiah College of Law, Bangalore: Admission begins around April and May, and there’s a minimum requirement of 60% in class XII.

5. KLE Society’s Law College, Bangalore: Admissions are partly through the LSAT India test, and partly through Class XII marks. The merit lists for the latter are released beginning 30th May 2015.

6. Ambedkar Government Law College, Chennai: A minimum of 45% in class XII is needed.

7. ULC Bangalore: Last date for forms is around June, and there’s a minimum requirement of 45%.

Good Luck!!
Team LST

]]>https://www.gpkafunda.com/options-other-than-the-major-law-entrance-exams/feed/47CLAT 2015 – My takehttps://www.gpkafunda.com/clat-2015-my-take/
https://www.gpkafunda.com/clat-2015-my-take/#commentsSun, 10 May 2015 18:39:06 +0000https://www.gpkafunda.com/?p=3219CLAT 2015 has two firsts to its credit – one, it is the first Computer Based CLAT and second it has removed the age limit for CLAT applicants and allowed me to take the paper. So here is my take of my debut CLAT.

CLAT 2015 was not a lengthy paper and students would not have struggled for time but there were surprises in all sections. The language of many questions was not upto the mark and I wondered if proof-reading was done before releasing the paper. Also it appears that the people who created the paper are in awe of IIMs and hence put a few questions directly from old CAT papers or maybe NLU Lucknow outsourced paper setting to IIM Lucknow English: out of the 40 questions in this section, 20 were based on vocabulary. Synonyms, inappropriate word, analogy and cloze test were all there. Additionally fill in the blanks with common confusable words (further/farther or discrete/discreet) were copied from CAT pattern. Some of the words were difficult but most were do-able. 6 grammar questions completed the usage bit. The RC passage of about 800 words was easy to read and the 10 questions that followed were simple and most students would have got at least 8 out of 10 correct. The remaining 4 questions were an attempt to include mild critical reasoning questions – 2 independent questions on essence of the passage and 2 on the “unreasonable” passage.

Given that there were a few difficult words and a few questions had close choices, I feel that an attempt of 36-38 questions with a net score of 30-32 was possible in this section.

Elementary Maths: this was anything but elementary. This is possibly the most difficult maths section in any law entrance test in India ever. One could have easily mistaken this section to be a practice set for CAT. At least 5 questions in this section were picked up directly from old CAT papers. The surprise (shock) factor in this section was a set of 5 Data Interpretation questions, while the questions were easy it would have taken some time for the students to understand what they are supposed to do. The questions from probability and P&C were also not simple and some of the easy questions were time consuming. The good thing was that you could save time by using the choices.

Given the “CAT” maths in this section not many students would have attempted over 15 questions. A good score in this section would be around 11-12.

Logical Reasoning: As usual this section (along with GK) was the saviour of most of the students. The questions included all the usual suspects like syllogism, coding-decoding, analytical reasoning, directions, relationship etc. The “CATification” of this section was in the form an analytical reasoning set of 5 questions (questions paper leak) picked up from an old CAT paper, there Data Sufficiency type of questions and the three Fact-Inference-Judgement questions.

The analytical reasoning set was time consuming and FIJ are error prone hence an attempt of 32-35 questions with a net score of around 30 can be considered good.

Legal Aptitude: This section comprised 18 questions of Legal Reasoning, 22 of Legal Knowledge and 10 of Assertion-Reasoning. Out of the 18 legal reasoning questions, 15 were single principle questions while the remaining 3 were based on a common principle, almost all these were easy. At least 3 questions were directly from LST material. The 10 assertion-reasoning questions would have been the problem area for most of the students as they typically have a high error rate in this question type. With a few questions of recent judgments the 22 legal knowledge questions also posed a few problems for the candidates.

Overall a net score of 35 in this section can be considered a good performance.

General Knowledge and Current Affairs: This is the only section in CLAT 2015 that has stayed true to form. It was on expected lines and questions covered all areas including sports (Malaysian Grand Pix, China Open), politics, economics etc. Any student into fair bit of reading news will be comfortable in this area. A good attempt in this section would be around 40 questions and one can expect a score of around 35.

Conclusion: With the increased level of difficulty of this paper I expect the cut-offs to fall significantly below the CLAT 2014 level. A general category candidate with a score of 140 should make it to Bangalore and the cut-off for the top three CLAT Law schools should be around 135 marks. NLU Lucknow and Patiala should be possible at a score of 118-120.

What Next: Irrespective of the score that you are are expecting, it will be prudent to start preparing for the opportunity that has come your way – MNLU at Mumbai. The paper is scheduled for 7th June and its last date of application is 14th May. While this will be first batch, I strongly urge all CLAT aspirants to apply as by virtue of its location the NLU at Mumbai will definitely be among the top law schools in India very soon.